Medical school in Springfield one step closer

Lawmakers approve $10 million in operating costs to help fund campus; must be approved by Nixon

May 9, 2013

Steve Edwards

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Springfield’s medical and business leaders applauded the news Thursday that Missouri legislators have approved $10 million in operating costs to help fund a medical school campus in Springfield.

The money, which still needs to be approved by Gov. Jay Nixon, would allow 32 students from each class at the University of Missouri to spend their final two years of medical school in Springfield observing doctors from CoxHealth and Mercy Hospital Springfield and helping to treat patients.

“It will allow us to begin the planning for the next step,” said Michele Schaefer, the senior vice president for regional operations at Mercy Springfield. “It will allow us to begin hiring for the Springfield campus.”

Steve Edwards, the president and CEO of CoxHealth, said funding still needs to be found for about $30 million for a new building at the Columbia campus to make the expansion possible. Edwards said much of that might be funded through state bonds.

“It’s a great, encouraging first step,” Edwards said.

A study that MU and local hospitals commissioned said that the economic impact of the campus statewide could be $390 million. That impact reaches its full effect after 27 years and is mostly from new doctors.

“It’s been a major priority for us for several years,” said Jim Anderson, the president of the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce. “We’ve been elated to see it get this far.”

More than 1,500 students, many of them from Missouri, apply to MU's medical school each year. The school has the capacity to accept 96 new medical students a year. A Springfield campus would allow the school to accept 128 medical students annually.

Weldon Webb, the senior associate dean for rural health at the MU School of Medicine, said the first students in the expanded program could be admitted in August 2015 if the funding comes together.

“We don’t want to count our chickens yet,” Webb said.

Edwards said Lester E. Cox, for whom CoxHealth is named, foresaw that Columbia wouldn’t be large enough to support a larger medical school.

“It’s a nice piece of symmetry that even 60 years ago someone would foresee they needed to grow and that the place they would grow would be southwest Missouri,” Edwards said.